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Harris closes, Canada names names and Bannon walks

 
Today's POLITICS story

Harris makes closing case in huge rally at DC's Ellipse

What happened
Vice President Kamala Harris delivered the closing argument of her presidential campaign last night, speaking to a large crowd outside the White House that stretched back to the Washington Monument. Her campaign estimated that more than 75,000 people attended. Speaking at the Ellipse — the spot where Donald Trump urged his supporters to "fight like hell" and march to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — Harris asked voters to "turn the page" on Trump's "division" and "chaos" and choose a "new generation of leadership" offering a "different path" that benefits all Americans.

Who said what
"In less than 90 days, either Donald Trump or I will be in the Oval Office," Harris said. "On Day 1, if elected, Donald Trump would walk into that office with an enemies list. When elected, I will walk in with a to-do list full of priorities on what I will get done for the American people." She pledged to "always put country above party and above self," to "fight for the people" and to listen to experts and stakeholders but also critics, because unlike Trump, "I don't believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I'll give them a seat at my table."

Harris combined a "blistering critique of Trump" — a man "unstable, obsessed with revenge and consumed with grievance" who "is not thinking about making your life better" — with "her policy vision for the country," The Wall Street Journal said. She "measured her policy plans against Trump's," CNN said, vowing she "would expand Medicare to cover home health care, where Trump would try to cut the program," for example, and "back women's reproductive rights, where Trump would further restrict them."

"You might not know it reading the news or following X," but Harris and Trump actually "firmed up" their closing messages weeks ago, David Weigel said at Semafor, and "they are hammering swing state voters with simple, direct arguments," mostly on the economy, "even as the media cycle spins out of control" with flashier outrage bait from their rallies.

What next?
The Ellipse speech "was framed as a campaign finale," The Associated Press said, but "it's far from Harris' last campaign event. She'll be hitting all the key battleground states this week as she makes her last pitch to voters," especially the tiny sliver of persuadable undecideds.

 
 
Today's INTERNATIONAL story

Canada says top Modi ally directed Sikh attacks

What happened
The Canadian government confirmed yesterday that it believes Indian Home Minister Amit Shah, a close ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was behind a campaign of violence and intimidation targeting Sikh separatists in Canada. Ottawa earlier this month publicly accused Indian embassy officials of involvement in the 2023 assassination of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia and the broader plot against Sikh separatists, leading to Canada and India expelling each other's top diplomats.

Who said what
Canadian officials did not publicly name Shah, "described as India's 'second most powerful man,'" earlier this month, the CBC said, but The Washington Post reported his alleged masterminding of the Sikh violence plot. Yesterday, Canadian Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister David Morrison told a committee in Parliament that he was the Post's source. "The journalist called me and asked if it was that person. I confirmed it was that person," he said.

Morrison did not elaborate on the government's evidence. "Canada told India about Shah's alleged role in the plots around October 2023," Reuters said, citing an Indian government source, "but New Delhi thinks the information is very weak, flimsy and does not expect it to cause any trouble for Shah or the government." 

What next?
The U.S. Justice Department announced "murder-for-hire charges" against another Indian government employee earlier this month, The Associated Press said, accusing Vikash Yadav of directing a plot to assassinate a Sikh separatist in New York, a killing allegedly "meant to precede a string of other politically motivated murders in the United States and Canada." The accusations, Reuters said, "have tested Washington and Ottawa's relations with India, often viewed by the West as a counterbalance to China."

 
 
Today's CRIME Story

'Empowered' Steve Bannon released from prison

What happened
Steve Bannon, a far-right influencer and longtime adviser to Donald Trump, was released from federal prison yesterday, returning to his "War Room" podcast to agitate for a MAGA victory one week before polls close on Election Day. Bannon, 70, served four months in a minimum security correctional facility in Connecticut for contempt of Congress after refusing to comply with a subpoena to testify before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. 

Who said what
"They were going to silence me and break me," Bannon told reporters. "I'm not broken. I'm empowered." He "wasted little time" returning to his role as "one of the leading provocateurs of the former president's political movement," The New York Times said. Bannon "bashed democrats and their agenda" during his first few hours of freedom, The Associated Press said. While in prison, Bannon had been "receiving daily updates from his daughter" about Trump's presidential campaign, Politico said. 

What next?
Bannon's "MAGA megaphone has suffered in his absence," CNN said. It will "take some time to bring the audience back and to mobilize them," liberal media analyst Madeline Peltz told the broadcaster. While the week before the election likely won't be "enough time to complete that," Bannon will likely "kick into high gear in the post-election chaos that we're all sort of anticipating." He is due to appear in New York state court Dec. 9 for a separate criminal trial on money laundering and fraud charges for allegedly duping donors to a private effort to build Trump's border wall. Trump pardoned Bannon on similar federal charges in one of his final acts as president.

 
 

It's not all bad

Georgia high schooler Sirish Subash won the 3M Young Scientist Challenge and a $25,000 prize for inventing a handheld device that detects pesticide residues on produce. Using spectrophotometry and AI, PestiSCAND identifies pesticide wavelengths, achieving better than 85% accuracy. Sirish aims to market the device for $20. The 14-year-old is passionate about physics and engineering, and said he wants to make a "positive mark on the world" by designing items that "impact everyone's lives for the better."

 
 
Under the radar

Earth's crust, or the outermost shell of the planet, has drastically changed throughout geologic history, mostly due to the work of plate tectonics. Over time, the crust's topography and position, including the location of continents, has not been fixed, even though it seems that way in the present era.

The planet has "more stable formations of rock," called cratons, that "contain old 'roots'" from "which tectonic plates extend," said Popular Mechanics. These cratons have remained largely unchanged for millions of years. Recently, a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience found that some of the world's oldest cratons are breaking apart.

The disintegration happens in a process called decratonization. Though the cause of decratonization is unclear, scientists posit that subduction, "when a denser tectonic plate is forced beneath the other into the underlying mantle, where it melts," and deep mantle plumes, "when a segment of the mantle rises to the surface due to its buoyancy and thermally erodes the crust," could be possible causes, said Phys.org.

Understanding how the crust changes can give insight into how the planet may look in the future. "Ancient lithosphere," or the Earth's crust and upper mantle, "can be broken apart, and this disintegration can be caused by this special form of subduction occurring near oceanic plates, revealing how the continents evolved over Earth's history," said Shaofeng Liu, the lead author of the study. Substantive changes are still hundreds of millions of years away.

 
 
On this day

October 30, 1735

John Adams was born in Braintree, Massachusetts. Adams served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before that, he was the country's first vice president and the first U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom. Adams died on July 4, 1826, hours apart from Thomas Jefferson.

 
 
TODAY'S newspaperS

With a week left of the 2024 presidential campaign, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump offered "two divergent views for nation," The Minnesota Star Tribune said on Wednesday's front page. "Harris reminds voters of Jan. 6 insurrection," while "Trump calls his crude NY rally a 'lovefest.'" There was "loathing, loyalty in majority-Latino city after Sunday rally," The Washington Post says. "Anxiety rises around the globe as election nears," the Los Angeles Times says. "Trump portends ethics concerns larger than '16," notably with "foreign interests," The New York Times says. "CEOs are cozying up to Trump as race appears deadlocked," The Wall Street Journal says. "Pollsters warn that polls not predictive," USA Today says. 

► See the newspaper front pages

 
 
Tall tale

White pie

A Düsseldorf pizzeria with the slogan "we deliver everything at home to you" was shut down after a police raid revealed that "everything" included illicit drugs. After receiving a tip, law enforcement officials found that one of the restaurant's best-selling pizzas, the No. 40, came with a side of cocaine. Investigators were able to trace the supply chain and arrested the pizzeria's owner and several suspected leaders of the drug ring.

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Theara Coleman, Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Devika Rao, Rafi Schwartz and Peter Weber, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Kent Nishimura / Getty Images; T. Narayan / Bloomberg via Getty Images; Lokman Vural Elibol / Anadolu via Getty Images; Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images